Weekly Rewind 3.13.10

Will the Astrotower once again take passengers up for a beautiful view of Coney Island? Sounds like plans may be in the works. Central Amusement International, who's developing the new Luna Park, asked the Coney Island History Project for plans and other historical data relating to the tower. It seems both parties are interested in having the ride reopen for guests some day.

Not only is Beech Bend amusement park adding a ton of new stuff for 2010, they're also making more a the park free to guests. In addition to parking, tube rentals, and sunscreen, soft drinks will now be free of charge as well. To check out the entire list of all that's new at Beech Bend this summer, look here.

Disney's Give a Day Get a Day campaign has already reached it's goal of 1 million volunteers and thus, has ended. The program was set to run at most for a year, but the overwhelming amount of people volunteering made it reach its goal in just 10 weeks. Most mainstream news can be quite depressing, it's nice to see some good going on!

D23 has announced that their large Expo event will officially be held ever other year, meaning the next one will take place in August of 2011. On it's 'off' year, they will over Destination D, and California based event that focuses more on the historical aspects of Disney. The first Destination D event will be subtitled Disneyland '55, celebrating the park's 55th anniversary this year.

Planet Snoopy debuts at many Cedar Fair parks this Spring, and several parks are posting images of the changes underway as Nickelodeon movies out and Snoopy moves in. California's Great America has some here, Carowinds here, and finally some Kings Island ones here. Lots of new paint and rethemed rides can be seen.

We all know I'm a big fan of aerial photos, so a reader was kind enough to point out that EPfans.info is featuring some awesome shots of Europa Park from the air. You'll have to head over there for the big images, but I must say the park looks great from above!

In other "across the pond" Merlin Entertainments just announced their chain wide attendance was up over 3 million people this past year. Now those are some great results, especially considering the awful numbers Cedar Fair and Six Flags posted for the same period. Read more here.

Everyone loves Knoebels... or at least I really do. Nothing earth shattering here about Black Diamond or Flying Turns, just general updates for both. I'm glad to hear the park is giving it another gold mining theme, complete with stunts. As for Flying Turns, as they've said before - it'll be done when it's done.

The L.A. Time's Funland Blog dug up some more information about Knott's new Snoopy's Starlight Spectacular, the park's new summertime light extravaganza. It promises to be more elaborate than Cedar Point's version. More on the new attraction here.